Geneva — The World Trade Organisation said on Thursday that Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee advanced to the final round in the race to be its director-general, setting the stage for the first woman to lead the 25-year-old organisation.
The campaign to lead the WTO during the most turbulent period of its existence is playing out against the backdrop of the pandemic, a worldwide recession, the US-China battle for trade supremacy and the American election. President Donald Trump has blasted the organisation as the worst trade deal in US history and pledged to overhaul it to better suit the country’s interests.
EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the two are “very strong and very experienced”. EU member states, which unanimously backed both candidates in the previous two rounds, will now hold internal consultations to determine their ultimate preference. Yoo said in September that she wanted the WTO to offer a meaningful platform for the US and China to discuss their trade disputes. She vowed to play the role of mediator, if chosen to lead the organisation and to work as a force for multilateralism.
Okonjo-Iweala previously said there are a few priorities for the WTO’s next director-general: reform its dispute settlement system and update the organisation’s rule book to address the economic and technological developments of the 21st century. Clouding the outlook for the selection process is the US presidential election on November 3. The WTO makes decisions on a consensus basis, and a lack of American support for any of the finalists could mean delays in picking the new director-general.
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